


love me like i'm brand new

by wikemheeler



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Mileven, Song fic, pls let me know if this is something people want lolz, so much fluff!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 11:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12630354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wikemheeler/pseuds/wikemheeler
Summary: in which max and el have a sleepover and el has a few flashbacks to her life with mike (so far).based off of call it what you want by taylor swift!





	love me like i'm brand new

**Author's Note:**

> please enjoy! this is my first mileven/stranger things fic in general so please tell me if you like it! follow me on tumblr (wikemheelers) for more fun content and feel free to request fics there too!

Eleven Hopper was a little embarrassed by how long it took her to warm up to Max Mayfield. Her and Max had made so many amazing memories, from listening to Madonna in El’s room, to gossiping about Mike and Lucas, to just figuring out girlhood together, she couldn’t imagine life without her. El really thought she would lose her mind if it weren’t for their weekly sleepovers, sans boys. They were able to be themselves around each other without the pressure of fitting in around the boys or the rest of Hawkins. El could be a little slower at social cues, and Max could be more vulnerable and honest than she could be anywhere else. Now, in the summer before their senior year, they still were balancing each other out and giving each other the space to be themselves they needed. Even if that space was filled with chatters and giggles about their boyfriends most of the time. 

 

“Wait, what happened?” El laughed as her friend blushed violently across from her.

 

“You heard me the first time, don’t make me repeat myself!” Max shoved El as she laughed herself.

 

“I just refuse to believe that Lucas farted while you guys were making out. That is too much for me to handle.”

 

Max busted out laughing hearing the situation described back to her, “He was so embarrassed I thought he was going to cry! I felt so bad and I promised not tell anyone so you  _ better  _ keep your mouth shut to Wheeler! He will never let Lucas live that down.”

 

“Are you kidding me?  _ I  _ will never let Lucas live that down! That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!”

 

“I’m serious, El!” Max laughed as she threw a pillow at her best friend.

 

“Ok fine, fine I promise not to bring it up to him-”

 

“ _ Thank  _ you!”

 

“However! I cannot possibly not tell Mike about that! It’s so funny he would do that really cute laugh where he snorts. How dare you try to deny me of that.”

 

Max smiled at El and sighed, “You’re disgustingly in love with that loser, you know that?”

 

El smiled back at Max, matching her sigh, “I know, but do you blame me? He’s perfect.”

 

“I mean, beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess,” Max knew that she had opened up the floodgates of Mike and Eleven and that there was nothing to do to stop El until she word vomitted all of her emotions out. El had the biggest capacity to love than anyone that Max had ever known, and she loved that about her best friend, but there are only so many different ways you can describe Mike’s eyes. 

 

“I know it’s crazy because I’ve never really known anyone else but he’s everything, you know? I hope you feel that way about Lucas. It’s the best feeling,” El was doing her dreamy eyes and she fell on her back dramatically against the bed.

 

“I think I do,” Max whispered as she matched the drama.

 

The two girls laid on their back, staring at the ceiling with too big grins on their faces until they looked to each other broke into side hurting laughter.

 

“It sounds so dumb, me thinking I found the love of my life at age 12. Who do I think I am?” El continued to giggle.

 

“Well I mean you did have extenuating circumstances to say the least,” Max’s laughter died down slightly, “I mean, he  _ did  _ save you.”

 

El smiled fondly at the memories. Her somehow managing to hide in his basement, him coming home to her with the biggest smile on his face, all of the hushed giggles and the unfamiliar feeling of home. 

 

“He really did save me.”

 

_ 1983 _

 

It wasn’t fair, how good he was. Eleven’s first taste at good people came from the nice man in the diner, and his kindness scared her. Not because he was scary, but because she had never known someone to care for her safety. When he was brutally murdered by the same people after her, she didn’t think she would ever find that again. That kind of person that could open their arms so willingly for someone so monstrous. That’s why it wasn’t fair for Mike to be so good. She could feel it in her bones in a way Papa never made her feel, or even the nice diner man, or any of the other boys. She knew he was different, and she knew they would destroy him. It wasn’t fair. 

 

In order to protect him, this sweet, good boy with dots on his cheeks and the best eyes she had ever seen, she had to leave. The hurt coursed through her, and even though she was just learning between right and wrong and fair and inequality, she knew that her taking from him was unfair and wrong. She was just about to get away with it too, before Mike came down the steps and stopped her heartbeat.

 

“El?” He asked sleepily, and oh so sweetly, as he rubbed his eyes. “What are you doing?”

 

El turned to his sleepy figure and felt her heart tear away towards him. She said nothing.

 

“El?” He seemed more awake now as he came towards her. “El? What’s going on?”

 

She looked away from him, her resolve crumbling, “Leave.”

 

His eyes somehow got even bigger than normal as he realized what she meant, “What? You’re leaving? El, you can’t do that!” Mike reached for her hand and tried to lead her to the couch so they could talk about it, but she would not move. “El, please. Can we, can we talk about this? Why are you leaving? Where are you going?” He was clearly getting upset, which made this harder for El.

 

“Unfair.” She said, trying to remain firm in her convictions. She knew right from wrong, Mike taught her, and know she knew that she wasn’t being right and she had to fix it.

 

“What’s unfair? Am I being unfair?” His heart and voice broke as he dropped his hand from hers, “We can fix something if you want to. You can sleep on the couch if you don’t like the floor and I can put something different on the shopping list if you’re getting bored of eggos-”

 

“Mike.”

 

He looked to her with a sense of softness she could feel warming her up, “Yeah?” He was hopeful. She knew that feeling.

 

“Me. Unfair. You, good.”

 

His whole body shrunk as she said this. How could she think such a thing? “El, you are not unfair. You are good. Not just good, you’re the best. Why do you think you’re unfair?”

 

El’s eyes started to water, which was a very unexpected occurrence and she shakily replied, “The bad men will hurt you, and it will be my fault. Good people should not be hurt because of me.”

 

As she spoke, her tears started to fall and Mike wiped them off delicately. He couldn’t believe the words he was hearing. As if he wouldn’t get hurt a thousand times for her.

 

“They won’t hurt me. And if they do, better me than you,” Mike looked into her eyes and whispered, “I don’t want you to get hurt any more than you already have.”

When she didn’t respond, he continued.

 

“For the past three nights, I’ve come down here to check on you in the middle of the night, which I now realize sounds creepy, but I swear it was nothing weird. Whatever, anyway, I would come down here because I would get nightmares about someone coming and taking you away, so I just had to make sure you were still safe. That’s why I’m down here right now, I was worried about you. You’re just so, so,” he wracked his brain to find a word that wouldn’t be totally embarrassing to somehow describe how much she meant to him, “ _ Cool _ and I care about you and I just don’t want you getting hurt. I’m not sure where you came from, but I do know that  _ they  _ were unfair to  _ you.  _ You would only be being unfair if I didn’t want you here, El, but I really,  _ really  _ want you here.”

 

So she stayed. She stayed and Mike insisted they remake the fort to be more comfortable, but really they just stayed up for an extra hour giggling and holding hands. Eventually, Mike had to back up to his room so he wouldn’t fall asleep down there and his mom would have to come find him and, subsequently El. He ignored how cold and empty his hand felt without hers in it. 

 

“Mike?” She whispered as he got up to head to the stairs.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I think you’re  _ cool  _ too. Promise.”

 

Mike was thankful for the darkness, so she couldn’t see him blush. “Goodnight, El.”

 

_ She thinks I’m cool? Wow. _

  
  


After a couple of hours of watching their guilty pleasure,  _ The Golden Girls _ , the girls were all covered up and half asleep when suddenly Max whispered to El, shaking her from her half asleep daze. “El?”

 

“Yeah, Max?” she whispered back.

 

“When Mike looks at you, like in the hall or a crowded classroom or something, does it like, I don’t know, nevermind.”

 

“No go ahead, does it what?”

 

Max sighed and continued, even quieter, “Does it...does it make you feel like you’re the only girl in the whole universe? Like the Earth just stopped spinning and the only people left standing are the two of you?”

 

El turned to face her friend, who was staring up at the ceiling, and smiled “Every day,” she paused, “Is that how Lucas makes you feel?”

 

“Shut up,” Max whined as she threw her arm over her face.

 

“You love sick mouth breather,” El giggled to herself.

 

“Says Mrs. ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with Mike Wheeler’!” Max giggled back.

 

Now it was El’s turn to be embarrassed, “So what! I can’t help myself. He’s too good.”

 

“At what exactly?” Max teased, earning a playful shove from El.

 

“He’s a good person! God you really are a mouth breather!”

 

The laughter died down after a few minutes and then there was silence, until El broke it, “And in  _ all  _ of the ways, just to get the record straight.”

 

“Gross!”

 

_ 1987 _

 

The first time Mike kissed El hard enough for her to feel it in her toes, it was New Year's Eve of 1987. They were sixteen and about to enter the second half of their junior year of high school and it was their first time attending a party that  _ wasn’t _ hosted by the lovely Joyce Byers. The whole party went, but the boys broke off throughout the night when some of the other guys in their grade stole them away. It didn’t really bother El and Max, they just kind of sat on the couch and people watched, marveling in how weird teenagers really are. It wasn’t until the clock was at 11:58 that El started getting antsy. 

 

Sure, her and Mike had kissed before. But they were just sweet goodbye kisses or the occasional I missed you kiss. Nothing from Karen’s Wheeler’s library, that’s for sure. She wasn’t complaining of course, never would she ever. Mike Wheeler was the best boy on the face of the Earth and just holding his hand alone sent shivers down her spine, she was just wondering when he would  _ make a move already _ .

 

El decided to take matters into her own hands, setting off to find Mike, leaving Max to people watch as their peers struggled to find a partner for midnight. 

 

She looked around slightly frantically for her boyfriend, which shouldn’t have been hard since he seemed to have shot up a foot and a half over the past year, but El was really having a hard time. Then people started shouting their ten second countdown and she really started to panic, having no sign of Mike yet. 

 

It was only when the countdown hit “3” that she felt a tap on her shoulder. She spun around to see her Mike, all curly hair and freckles. The smile on her face when he found her must have been able to be picked up from the moon, she was so happy to see him.

 

“Mike!” El leaped up and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

 

“2”

 

“Hey babe,” he sighed into her hair.

 

“Where have-”

 

“1”

 

“Hold that thought,” Mike interrupted.

 

“ZERO!”

 

Right as the crowd began to go wild, Mike leaned down and kissed her with more passion than he had ever kissed her before. His hands were on her hips, holding her between him and the wall. El was flying.

 

She kissed him back with just as much fervor, tangling her fingers in the hair toward the bottom of his neck, pulling him down to her more as he moaned against her lips with every tug of his hair. Eleven Hopper had never heard such a wonderful noise in her life and did everything possible to get him to keep making that sound. 

 

Heaven only knows how they got so carried away, but they didn’t break up until El realized she literally could not breathe. She broke away abruptly, coughing and trying to catch her breath. 

 

“Shit, are you ok?” Mike panicked as he rubbed her back.

 

El just started laughing as she stood up straighter to look at him. “Mike Wheeler, I’m far better than ok,” she sighed as she placed her hands on either side of his face. 

 

One hand still on her waist, he rubbed the back of his neck with the other as he blushed, “Sorry uh about that, I’m not really sure what got into me, are you sure you’re ok?”

 

In response she stood on her tiptoes and whispered into his ear, “I don’t know what just got into you either, but it is more than welcome to come back  _ anytime _ .”

He just groaned in response, pressing harder on her hips. “You’re going to be the death of me, Hopper.”

 

El smiled and kissed him hard briefly and then broke away, ignoring his slight whine at the loss of contact, “Not so fast, babe. You can’t die yet. We’re just getting started.”

  
  


The next morning came, Hopper already at work, so the girls had the house to themselves. They, of course, made eggos as they blasted Madonna throughout the house, dancing in their pajamas and using random kitchen utensils as microphones. It was free and fun and they did it almost every weekend but it never got old. They were having the time of their lives to  _ Like a Virgin _ when a knock on the door came and El’s heart stopped. She still got the chills when an unexpected visitor came, it brought her back to being twelve and afraid. Max knew this of course so she went and answered the door, leaving El out of sight of the front entry way. 

 

Max returned approximately thirty seconds later with a sly smile, “It’s for you.”

 

Mike followed suit and El immediately ran into his arms and he lifted her up, spinning her around. 

 

“What are you doing here?” El laughed as he set her down. 

 

“I knew you’d be here and Hopper wouldn’t be so I just dropped in,” he smiled down at her, “And I brought you this.” Mike pulled a long, black velvet box out of his pocket and El immediately gasped and looked up at her boyfriend. 

 

“What is this?” She asked, trying to not let her excitement be too obvious. Mike was always getting her random presents, like food or records or books, but never something like this. Nothing in a long velvet box that surely had something sparkly in it.

 

“Well, as you know, our two year anniversary is coming up, and I wanted to surprise you with something nice. An extra surprise is that it’s a month early!” Her boyfriend was getting so giggly and smiley, it was infectious. “Go on, open it!”

 

El did not need any more convincing as she took the box and opened it slowly, nervous but all too excited to see what was on the inside. Mike was practically vibrating in front of her, anxiously awaiting her reaction to what was inside of the box

 

When the box finally was opened all the way, El’s hand immediately went to her mouth as she saw the present Mike picked for her. It was a simple silver chain with a delicate pendant with the letter “M” engraved on it.

 

“Do you like it?” He whispered softly as she stared.

 

El looked to her boyfriend, her sweet boyfriend with a heart too big for his body, with eyes that spark up the darkest of her eyes, and smiled so big she thought she was about to burst at the seams. 

 

“Of course I love it. Will you put it on me?” She spun around and pushed the little hair she had on the back of her neck as he fastened the necklace. It laid perfectly on her, like it was always meant to be there. 

 

Turning back to look at Mike, she stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck, playing with his hair at the base of his neck, “How did I get so lucky?” Here was this boy, the best boy, that just so willingly fell into her and her crazy life, no second thoughts. Not only that, but he fell in love with her despite all of the thousands of red flags not to. It was as if her life began when Mike found her. His love made her brand new.

 

“I think it should be me asking that question, not the other way around,” He laughed as he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. 

 

El blushed and giggled at her boyfriend, he was so unaware of how crazy their whole situation actually was. He just saw her and that was it. Interdimensional monsters be damned.

 

“You really do wonders for my self esteem, Mike Wheeler,” she teased as she moved her face closer to his.

 

“Imagine how I feel when I see you walk down the halls? All of these guys, big, strong guys, mind you, ogling you like cavemen and you just keep on walking to me. I feel like a fucking God,” he finished with a laugh as he rested his forehead on hers.

 

She moved back and looked at him in humorous disbelief, “Are you kidding me? Of course I keep walking to you. It’s  _ you _ . It’s always been you with your cheek dots - I mean  _ freckles  _ \- and your eyes and all eight thousand feet of you, not to mention the whole saving my life thing,” she saw him starting to blush and moved closer to him again, “They’ve got nothing on you, babe,” she whispered against his lips as she leaned in for a kiss.

 

However, they seemed to have forgotten that Max was still there, but no worries, she had no problem reminding them with a loud cough. They immediately broke apart and Mike retreated to rubbing the back of his neck and switching from the balls of his feet to his heels.

 

“Hey Max,” Mike coughed awkwardly.

 

Max just rolled her eyes and adjusted her overnight bag on her shoulder, “I’m gonna go, El. You two are clearly  _ busy _ ,” Max winked as she let herself out the front door.

 

El was a blushing mess as she turned back to look at her boyfriend, a matching blushing mess. They looked to each other and busted into a fit of giggles, not being able to help themselves. 

 

“Poor Max, just an innocent bystander to our gross love sickness,” El laughed as she moved back to Mike, arms returning to their rightful place around his neck.

 

Mike rolled his eyes, “She’ll get over it. I have to listen to Lucas talk about her constantly, she can deal with us almost making out in your kitchen.”

 

El laughed and then remembered what Max had told her the night before about Lucas, which only caused her to laugh harder, “That...reminds me! I...have...to tell you...something about...Lucas,” she struggled through her laughter. 

 

She, somehow managed to get the story out and, to her delight, Mike laughed so hard he snorted, just like she loved it. 


End file.
